Teacher question: I’m an avid reader of your blog. I know that your focus is on teaching reading, but what about fostering a love of reading? Recently, the news has reported that no one is reading anymore. Shouldn’t we do something about that?
Shanahan responds:
You’re right about the recent news. The headlines have been incessant:
A Third of Americans Say They’re Reading Fewer Books (CBS News)
Gen Z is Reading Less. What That Means in the Age of Ready Answers. (Forbes)
Reading for Pleasure is Sharply Down Among Schoolkids, Report Shows. (NBC News)
Fewer People Are Reading for Fun, Study Finds (New York Times)
Reading for Pleasure in Free Fall: New Study Finds 40% Drop Over Two Decades (University of Florida News)
Is the decline in reading books making us dumber? (The Economist)
Reading for pleasure builds empathy in children, but fewer kids are picking up books just for the fun of it (The Conversation)
If you dig down into those accounts you’ll find statistics that are every bit as depressing as these lead-ins. For instance:
- A Gallup survey reports that 35% of kids in K-12 don’t like reading and 43% never read for fun (Jones, 2022).
- A National Endowment for the Arts study reports that fewer than half of adults have read a book in the past year (Iyengar, 2024).
- The National Assessment of Educational Progress finds that only 14% of 8th graders read for enjoyment daily (NAEP, no date).
- The U.S. Department of Labor says that adults are spending about 25% less time each day reading than they did a decade ago (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024).
- The American Academy of the Arts and Sciences (2023) reports that 84% of adults read for 5 minutes or less on a typical day – only 19% devote such a small amount of time to watching television, playing games, and using computers for personal purposes.
- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation reveals that the U.S. is near the bottom of 63 countries in how much our 15-year-olds read for pleasure – including many countries whose students cannot read as well as American youths (OECD, 2011).
Independent reports, varied research methodologies, different but large and representative populations… and with consistent conclusions: We don’t read much for enjoyment and we’re reading less than we used to.
The reason? According to a lot of the articles, the problem is our smart phones. The story that they tell is something like: In 2007, Steve Jobs introduced phones that could connect to the internet. Since then, reading in America has waned. Screens displaced books, immediate internet gratification sapped our attention to the point where few can stay on task long enough to read more than 140 characters.
At least those conclusions are often drawn. That’s referred to as displacement theory. We don’t read because screens have displaced reading.
Before conceding the point or exploring solutions (if there are any to be had), let’s contextualize those data and make sure we understand them.
First, I think it’s worth noting that America’s abandonment of reading began long before the smart phone and social media. In the most rigorous and inciteful analysis of all this, it’s noted that our reading decline started in 1940s – not the 2000s (Bone, Bu, Sonke, & Francourt, 2025; Canoy, van Ours, & van der Ploeg, 2006; James & Moore, 1940; National Endowment for the Arts, 2007; Robinson, 1980). That’s right, reading had been receding long before these screens were available.
Americans started reading less for pleasure, reading fewer books, and reading less fiction in the 1940s. When FDR was president, we blamed it on movies, radio, and comic books. Later, when I was a kid, television was thought to be the cause, and now it’s due to computer games, the internet, and Tik Tok.
Displacement theory seems accurate when it comes to describing what has taken the place of reading. But that only describes what happened, not why.
It should be acknowledged that this drop in reading has not strictly been an American affair either. Australia and the United Kingdom have experienced similar reading reductions.
None of these reports have indicated how much pleasure reading a society requires for it to be healthy or sound. It appears that observers assume that there is a correct amount of pleasure reading that is needed, and that that amount is what had been common in the recent past.
I’m on board with a society requiring that everyone know how to read. There is clear public good in that. I’m also pleased that this public good can be used by individuals towards their personal happiness (Heath, 1996).
These reports make me wonder, does the freedom to read include a freedom to choose not to?
For the most part, these reports have been mute about what counts as reading. I get that a novel is eligible, but what if I’m interacting on social media?
Also, many of the explanations for the decline in reading point their fingers at the schools. For example, I’ve read that early phonics instruction is turning kids off. That one not coming from the kids but from people who don’t like phonics and who assume children share their contempt.
More recently, I’ve been told that the culprit is the use of short selections to teach reading. That’s provocative, but it neglects that such teaching was universal in the 1940s and 1950s when people read more ((e.g., Dick & Jane, Alice & Jerry), and that a steady decline in pleasure reading accompanied the massive increase book-based reading instruction that took place in the 1990s-2010s (e.g., whole language, Guided Reading, Accelerated Reader, Units of Study).
That reminds me that the many laudatory and considerable efforts taken by teachers to increase kids’ love of reading have neither stemmed nor slowed the turn away from pleasure reading. Think of free reading time (SSR, DEAR), or the proliferation of classroom libraries and book fairs (Scholastic, Reading is Fundamental). The more of those things that we did, the less reading kids chose to do.
All these explanations and attempts at solutions have been well-meaning guesses.
More interesting insights have emerged from scholarly studies. The researchers have been less enamored with the activities that have replaced pleasure reading, and more curious about the conditions that empower or interfere with choice. That work has identified three key variables: reading ability, opportunity to read, and individual purposes.
Ability
Reading for pleasure depends upon readers having sufficient reading ability to engage in the practice. Historically, as more people could read proficiently, the incidence of pleasure reading increased (Heath, 1996).
Reading ability in the U.S. grew steadily from the 1770s to the 1970s (Kaestle, Damen-Moore, Stedman, & Tinsley, 1991). Since then, reading levels have languished – punctuated by brief periods of small improvements or declines. Those ability gains from the 1940s—1970s didn’t prevent a decline in interest in reading, and the most recent pullbacks from reading don’t seem to have been stimulated by any accompanying drops in reading ability.
In fact, one of things that is interesting about the most recently documented declines in reading is that although all the demographics are reading less, the biggest reductions have been experienced by the best readers (Jones, 2022). Perhaps this shift in reading habits by college graduates is a mirror of what has been documented in our universities, that students are not even doing the reading required in their coursework (Baier, 2011) – though this group’s interest in pleasure reading has long been dubious (Jersild, 1931).
There are large numbers of Americans – both adults and children – who do not read very well (NAEP, Kirsch), and consequently, it’s understandable that they may not find reading pleasurable. We should continue to seek ways to expand the literacy franchise in the U.S. However, given the literacy levels already attained and the declines in pleasure reading evident with our best readers, it seems unlikely that higher reading levels are the key to expanded pleasure reading. The gains we are likely to see from such efforts would not be expected to exert an appreciable impact on pleasure reading.
Opportunity
Even if people can read well, they won’t engage in it if there isn’t sufficient opportunity to do so. Opportunity has to do with accessibility, affordability, and time.
It’s much easier to get your hands on a book these days than it was when I was a boy. Bookstore availability grew exponentially from 1940-1980, with the emergence of the sprawling shopping mall chains (e.g., Borders, Daltons, Barnes & Noble), the availability of mass-market paperbacks, and discounts that kept books affordable. Bookstore availability has declined more recently, but that’s been due to the even greater accessibility of books over the internet (e.g., Amazon, Bookshop, Powells). Libraries now offer digital books through services like Libby and Hoopla, meaning that one doesn’t even have to leave home to borrow books.
The children’s book industry has flourished, too – though there are still book deserts in economically-deprived communities (Neuman & Moland, 2019). There are many book charities aimed at addressing that problem and they have managed to distribute tens of millions of books to kids in these neighborhoods (see the charities list on this site).
Leisure time – the time available for pleasure reading – has grown, too, though this shift has been uneven. Adults (25-54) have experienced no improvements in time availability since the 1940s, but young adults and senior citizens both have more leisure time (14-25-year-olds gained 5 hours per week, and the seniors have 14 hours more weekly (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024; Krantz-Kent & Stewart, 2007).
There are exceptions to these improvements in opportunity: fewer newspapers are available and the costs of newspapers and magazines have increased more than the rate of inflation. This is also true of comic books. What was a dime comic in 1950, should be $1.40 today given inflation, but comics usually cost four or five dollars. Overall reading is still affordable, but some especially popular choices have gotten pretty pricey!
Overall, opportunity to read in terms of accessibility, affordability and time availability has improved or remained the same for 80 years. The size and universality of the reading declines suggest that they are not likely due to reductions in opportunity to read. Opportunity has not declined; just the opposite. That means people are actively choosing not to read.
Targeted efforts to make reading materials more available in some communities for some audiences could have positive local effects, but increases in opportunity do not seem likely to hold much promise for increasing reading habits.
Goals
Social psychologists have some important insights about the desirability of reading. They find that extroversion – the social, outgoing personality type – is negatively related to reading engagement (Finn, 1997). That means that, all things being equal, some people are just wired to not be turned on to text. Extroverts prefer activities that immerse them in interpersonal connections, an idea personified in popular culture by Marian the librarian (Music Man) or Urkel (Family Matters), socially inept characters lost in their books with few friends.
But personality is complex. Few of us are extroverts or introverts. We are a mix of those – sometimes seeking to be on our own, other times yearning for connection.
There are no data suggesting that more of us are extroverts these days than in the past, though it seems likely that there could be periods when the society goes a bit more one way than the other (think of the COVID tragedy and its aftermath).
The same may be true at certain times of life. The great emphasis on peer relationships during adolescence may be a prime example of that. Social scientists have found a connection between reading and unhappiness with teens, for instance (Csikszentmihalyi & Hunter, 2003). “Teenagers who spent more time during the week [on reading] are generally less happy.” The researchers concluded that reading took time away from interacting with friends and this was the source of the unhappiness. Another possibility not considered by the researchers is that teens with fewer social connections were unhappy, so they read to fill that gap. Either way, this line of research reveals something important about reading that has been ignored in so many of these articles: most readers don’t read to read, they read to fulfill their needs or goals.
Societies change. Some of those changes come about due to technology. That’s why it’s not surprising that some fiction reading may give way to viewing stories in films or on television, or why someone might read more digital texts than printed ones. The same can be said about shifting from newspapers to newsreels in the 1930s, then to the 6:00 news in the 1950s, and now to social media.
But there are other changes, too.
In analyses going back to the 1930s, women/girls have tended to read for pleasure more than men/boys, and their reading has usually included more fiction. Participation by women in the workforce has roughly doubled since 1950 – a shift that would likely alter, not just the amount of their reading, but its focus. These days more women are reading books like Lean In or Machiavelli for Women, leaving them less time for the Outlander novels. Think of all the teacher book clubs and study groups aimed at sharpening professional skills rather than just providing entertainment.
The point is that we read for a purpose; to fulfill needs, to achieve goals, to solve problems, to increase knowledge, to escape, and to make connections. Development – both our personal development and the development of our civilization – may alter the prominence of those purposes from time to time as well as altering the availability of tools to accomplish them.
Reading ability and opportunities to read can impact how much we read. That’s why – if we want to have a society with lots of readers and reading – it matters that we ensure that our schools teach all children to read with great proficiency, that our communities have libraries, and that our tax and mailing policies keep texts of all kinds affordable and accessible.
Nevertheless, lacks of ability and opportunity are not the reason for a reading recession. Nor, frankly, is the increase in the reliance on screens the problem. Screen time may reveal where our reading time is going, but it doesn’t explain the reason for the shift.
Either our purposes have changed – so reading is no longer as pertinent to our lives as it once was – or, we have a proliferation of alternative tools capable of satisfying those needs that reading was addressing.
If we want reading to remain essential, we need to think hard about why we want people to read and how we can best make our children aware of those values. What is it that reading provides that must be preserved?
In the next entry, we’ll consider what problems reading can best address and what we can do to let our kids in on those secrets.
References
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. (No date). Time spent reading. https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/public-life/time-spent-reading
Baier, K., Hendricks, C., Warren Gorden, K., Hendricks, J.E., & Cochran, L. (2011). College students’ textbook reading, or not! American Reading Forum Annual Yearbook, 31. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/CindyHendricks/publication/266008859_College_students%27_textbook_reading_or_not/links/577d427b08aed39f598f6fed/College-students-textbook-reading-or-not.pdf
Bone, J. K., Bu, F., Sonke, J. K., & Fancourt, D. (2006). The decline in reading for pleasure over 20 years of the American Time Use Survey. IScience. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.113288
Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024). American time use survey user’s guide: Understanding ATUS 2003 to 2023. https://www.bls.gov/tus/ atususersguide.pdf.
Canoy, M., van Ours, J. C., & van der Ploeg, F. (2006). The economics of books. In Handbook of the economics of art and culture, pp. 721-761. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit. http://refhub.elsevier.com/S2589-0042(25)01549-4/sref18
Finn, S. (1997). Origins of media exposure: Linking personality traits to TV, radio, print, and film use. Communication Research, 24(5), 507–529. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365097024005003
Heath, S. B. (1996). The sense of being literate: Historical and cross-cultural features. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (vol. 2, pp. 3-25). New York: Routledge.
Iyengar, S. (2024). Federal data on reading for pleasure: All signs show a slump. https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2024/federal-data-reading-pleasure-all-signs-show-slump
James, H. E. O., & Moore, F. T. (1940). Adolescent leisure in a working class district. Occupational Psychology, 14, 132-145.
Jersild, A. (1931). A note on the pleasures and unpleasures of college men and women. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 26(1), 91–93. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0073740
Jones, J. M. (2022). Americans reading fewer books than in the past. Washington, DC: Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-books-past.aspx
Kaestle, C. F., Damen-Moore, H., Stedman, L. C., & Tinsley, K. (1991). Literacy in the United States. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Krantz-Kent, R., & Stewart, J. (2007). How do older Americans spend their time. Monthly Labor Review, 130(5), 8-26. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2007/05/art2full.pdf
National Assessment of Educational Progress. (No date). 2022 Reading survey questionnaire results. https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reading/survey-questionnaires/?grade=4
National Endowment for the Arts (2007). To read or not to read: A question of National Consequence. www.arts.gov
Neuman, S. B., & Moland, N. (2019). Book deserts: The consequences of income segregation on children’s access to print. Urban Education, 54(1), 126–147. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085916654525
Organisation for Economic Co-operation. (2011). Do students today read for pleasure? PISA in Focus. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2011/09/do-students-today-read-for-pleasure_g17a20a5.html
Robinson, J. P. (1980). The changing reading habits of the American public. Journal of Communication, 30, 141-152.
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